Tuesday, January 05, 2010

portrait of a ballerina

When planning for Maddie's 3rd birthday, I decided to enroll her in a dance class. To know Miss Maddie is to know that she loves to dress up, twirl, dance and move around. After talking it over with Melissa, we put Maddie and Kate in dance class together. At the studio, we laughed over who was more excited about the class today, the girls or the moms!

In "Twinkle Stars," the girls will learn the basics of ballet, tap and jazz. Today they did lots of group dancing, copying the teacher's moves such as heel and toe taps, swishing their feet, marching, jumping, and twirling. They also worked together on the bar for a bit. Then the teacher had the girls line up against one wall and take turns doing moves across the floor. It was fun to see the different little personalities as they made their way across the room. Some lingered, watching each move in the mirror. Others danced with precision, copying the teacher's moves exactly. Some just whizzed across the floor, in a hurry to get to their friends on the opposite side! For their grand finale, the girls jumped over a bear, spun around in a hula hoop, and then made a little bow. The last five minutes they got to dance around the room, freestyle.

Maddie did such an amazing job! I fought back tears a few times, amazed at what she was capable of doing and her delight in dancing. She had no trouble whatsoever following directions and did just about everything the teacher demonstrated!

Here are some photos from our fun day:

All dressed up and ready to go!

Practicing a move for class

Twirling in the hula hoop

Overjoyed to be in class with so many pretty ballerinas!

Dancing across the floor

Doing a little bar work with Kate after class

2 comments:

bonnieb said...

Are you sure she isn't quite 3? She looks so grown up in these photos. What a beauty.

mel @ the larson lingo said...

yay! yesterday was so.much.fun!
My pictures are uploading as I type!
So glad we decided to put our girls in dance together!